


Peter Nureyev and the Thief's Lament

by lequeenofmoondoor



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: M/M, Nureyev is very extra, Nureyev's viewpoint, Peter Nureyev's various aliases - Freeform, our favorite petulant detective, very canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 19:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13488630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lequeenofmoondoor/pseuds/lequeenofmoondoor
Summary: Juno Steel was, undeniably, an idiot. There’s enough to write an entire book on it. But more on that later.There are two viewpoints to every story. Some of them happen to be narrated by incredibly extra thieves who are very good at their jobs and would still be if it weren't for idiotic, petulant, ridiculous detectives who made said thieves question themselves.





	Peter Nureyev and the Thief's Lament

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first Penumbra fanfic, and I've been working on this for over a year. The title is inspired my my best friend saying: "I like 'Peter Nureyev and the Thief's Lament.' It makes it sound like he's writing in his diary with a pink pen." I hope you enjoy!

Who was Juno Steel?

Of course, I knew who Juno Steel was in the literal sense. Whenever encountering a new situation or problem, I tend towards extensive research into who I’ll be working with, what exactly the situation is in the area in question, and the easiest (or most fun) way to accomplish my goals. It would have been a simple matter to resolve, what with collecting blood to break the locks on the case holding one of the most notorious Martian artifacts: the Mask of Grimpathuthis. However, thanks to an… Altercation in the Kanagawa household interrupting me in the middle of my work, I had to abandon my mission briefly. This lead me to my position in hiding among the ranks of the prickly, secretive Dark Matters agents, and my assignment to a private investigator known by the name of Juno Steel.

Forging paperwork to make it look like you’ve been part of an elusive organization in just a few hours isn’t as hard as one might think; not if you know the tricks, at least. Trying to get anything out of those who work there? Much trickier. From the intel that Wire had reluctantly shared with me, I gathered that that Juno was most certainly going to be a handful. More hacking and digging of my own into both public and private records showed that he used to be a police officer with numerous citations for not following codes- which must have been why he turned to his own practice. No rules, nothing to hold him back from using whatever means were necessary. It was one of the reasons why I possessed my current occupation, anyhow. The detective also had connections with prominent crime rings, further implicating him in a complicated relationship with the law. I had to admit, I admired a woman who could hold her own against my persistent badgering; after pressing Wire for more information than the vague nonsense she had given me at first, she eventually cracked. She revealed that Steel was an acquaintance of hers with whom she had a long history was and that he was “an insufferable brat who is so self centered that when he looks in the mirror, it breaks with how many times he projects his self-loathing and superiority onto it!” It was quite obvious that she had a lot of feelings towards him. Strolling into the Hyperion City-based office, I expected a quick in and out situation where I got my mask and was on my merry way.   
Yet another unexpected part of my plan. 

Yes, Juno Steel was mildly to moderately self-centered, completely disregardful of the law, and quite friendly with the Kanagawa family I was trying to rob. It was all there, all of it, in the notes that I had copiously researched. He had a quick wit on him and an exorbitant amount of self loathing, which Wire had mentioned to me personally. In print, it seemed like just another hardened private investigator in Hyperion City- apparently, it was quite a popular career option, right after crooked politician. So what made Juno Steel so special?  
What made me tell him my name?

Since I had fled my identity after the unfortunate incident with Mags, Brahma, and the Guardian Angel System, I had lived in a shadowy anonymity. It was much more convenient to continue assuming new aliases with clean slates than to lug around the name and burden of Peter Nureyev. What was in a name, anyhow? A rose by any other would smell as sweet, according to an ancient Earth historian. Perhaps I am the living embodiment of the saying. Juno met me as Agent Rex Glass, but I’ve been trading names since I was fifteen years old. Cy Amber. Baron Stellar. Casper Thorn. If I chose to, I could go on for at least five minutes listing different ones. Their only relation was that they had nothing to do with Peter Nureyev, my most closely held secret. 

Until I met Juno Steel, that is. He didn’t exactly fit to the mold that my research had carved out for him. Research can’t tell you about the flutter you feel in your stomach as you walk into a detective’s office only to be met with one of the most intense gazes you’ve ever seen on a person, who just so happens to be climbing out a window. It can’t caution you that his voice is so smooth that it slices through your insides like a knife through butter. It can’t clue you in on the fact that you just might be meeting someone who will turn your life upside down. Needless to say, I had to quickly figure these things out on my own and adapt. A warning would have been much appreciated. 

I was still trying to decide whether letting Cecil stab him in the arm with a fistful of spikes to protect me was an extension of his own self-loathing or disgustingly genuine need to help as many people as he could. The man would have blamed himself for the Martian extinction if you planted even an inkling of a suggestion in his mind. Juno had almost as many issues as I did, which was saying something- I killed the man who raised me off the streets to save an entire planet. The main difference was where the detective had the strength to stay with his mistakes, I chose to leave and become a master criminal who traversed the galaxy and lived amongst the stars. Rather poetic, if I do say so myself. 

Planets upon planets, systems upon systems, glittering treasures upon glittering treasures. A new person in my arms and bed at every destination, someone who I could leave in the morning on my own terms. It was a nice, albeit slightly lonely, life, and it was one that I could easily manage. A pain-free life of adventure! It would be perfect- it was perfect- until Juno reminded me of the one thing I don’t have: companionship. 

He was genuine, despite all of his bravado and clever remarks. He truly believe that he could help people in this messed up world. He was… Sexy. He wished I could stay, practically asked me to both at the Kanagawa’s and in his apartment, even though we both knew that I couldn’t- especially after he figured out my trick to get the Mask out from underneath everyone’s nose. That Juno Steel was and is a special one, someone the galaxy might actually benefit from. I would have loved to stay, yet both work and my own unsatisfiable wanderlust called me to much bigger things than a small little niche of Hyperion City.

I wished that he could come with me. I still do. There were amazing things to be seen, amazing things to be done together. Even though we had only met a day ago, there was something in Juno that told me that he deserved so many things, but he didn’t deserve to be stuck in some crime-ridden town with low-lifes around every corner. He deserved a man of a higher caliber, one who was experienced.   
I couldn’t find it in me to be upset with Juno when he arrested me. After all, there had been much more difficult escapes I had had to make in my line of work than a pair of handcuffs and two rude police officers. Wouldn’t recommend trying to escape an underwater cave on Europa surrounded by “space mermaids” (as dubbed by the scientist who determined their existence oh so many years ago). I wasn’t exactly sure if Juno was upset with me for leaving. Most likely, he was discontented with the fact that a majority of the words that came out of my mouth had proven to be a lie. Yet it wasn’t a lie when I told him that I said I wanted him to come with me. Or that I cared about him.

I’ll see you again, Juno darling. It’s only a matter of time. 

\-------------------------------------------

Signed, your better half, Peter Nureyev. Those were the last words that one Juno Steel had heard- or rather, read in scribbled pen- from me, and perhaps the last ever to his knowledge. Undoubtedly, even though he wasn’t aware of it, I had been keeping tabs on the hero of the story. How could I not? Here was a man who knew my name, my one secret, so it would be foolish of me to forget about him and leave him in my dust. Also, the enigma of the petulant detective was not one that I wanted to forget. Someone had to make sure that he was alright, that some big bad hadn’t caught him where he was vulnerable. It certainly did pay to have powerful friends who could report back to me when I asked… In exchange for a few favors, of course.   
For example, while I was visiting Saturn’s rings to pick up a delivery for one Valles Vicky in my brief respite from Mars, I was summoned back on the orders of Miasma to fetch another ancient Martian artifact for her collection from the surface of the red planet. Granted, maybe I should have remained on her side of the asteroid belt in case I was needed, but rule number one of hiding from the agency that you just infiltrated is that you must find somewhere at least a few hundred thousand miles away to lie low on. Not that I minded, after all. One small planet can be a little stifling, so I was more than happy to investigate crystals for a while. 

Unfortunately for me, Miasma didn’t feel similarly about the situation. The moment that she ordered me to return, I just had to, didn’t I? The woman was aloof, ruthless, and desperate to get what she wanted; as far as employers went, there were many worse options out there. At least she followed through on both her threats and her promises, thus ensuring her credibility and the reliability of others. And I take pride in my skills as a thief, so I didn’t tend to fall on her bad side. Refusing to return to Mars because of “lost connections” would have certainly put me there, wouldn’t it? Trust me, I had once seen her slaughter a man who wouldn’t, couldn’t give her the answer she was looking for. Painfully. With a blowtorch.  
While it was a rush, my ship landed just in time to beat- who else- Juno Steel and his friend into the abandoned factory, but I wasn’t fast enough to con the pill out of him. Miasma’s men who were stationed to keep an eye on the situation had been outsmarted like the brute force they were, and one petulant detective had managed to swallow a drug that he didn’t even understand. Oh Juno, look at the mess that you’ve gotten yourself into. Why must you always blindly pursue challenges that you have no business becoming involved in? I barely knew the extent of the pill, only that Miasma craved it madly. So to swallow it… How stupidly heroic of him.

The incident and loss left me stranded on Mars to hunt down more artifacts, such as a throne and a key, before someone else could. And believe me, I did. New aliases, new personas who all served the purpose of getting me where I needed to be and what I needed to know before fading once again into oblivion. For most of my everyday travels, I had forged paperwork attached to the name Queenie Cane. Short, simple, forgettable. Just the way I like a name to be. At the very least, it helped me to avoid anyone on Mars that I didn’t to see me. Powerful friends who agreed to lend me keys and backdoor entrances to some of the most highly secured places on the planet? Sure, they could see my papers all they like and still know who they were dealing with. But someone who I already had a difficult enough time getting out of my head… 

It felt like Juno Steel was everywhere I looked. At the very least, most of the things that I saw or heard or felt reminded me of him. If someone made an overtly self-deprecating remark about themselves, my mind immediately spun through every negative thing Juno had said in the short time we knew each other. Trust me, he put himself down constantly. Every flash of dark skin stopped me in my tracked for a moment to take a second look, just in case. There were a lot of just in cases. Many a soft touch I felt at night felt nothing at all like the larger, calloused hands I wanted to have roaming my body. None of those encounters lasted a long time. None of those encounters held a candle to the weak palpitations in my chest when I actually caught a glimpse of the elusive Juno Steel.

Hyperion City was big, sure, but nothing seemed large after moving from the Outer Rim to the sun in a day or so; that had been a great adventure. With that in mind, I was well aware that it would only be a matter of time before I saw the real detective, rather than just a shadowy figure haunting me every time I closed my eyes. What was the matter with me? Juno and I crossed paths at least twice in my journeys across Mars, always in passing, never looking back even though every muscle in my body wanted to. He never saw me, of course. I doubted that even if he came to the conclusion that it might be me, he wouldn’t believe it. Juno Steel wasn’t exactly the type of person who expected good things to happen to him. Not that I was anything good, per se…Though he just might have been to me. Even the thought of him sent a shiver down my spine that no one had ever incited in me before. I reiterate- what was the matter with me?

I had been flipped upside down and head over heels for a detective who didn’t give a damn about himself. The most frightening part of it all was that I didn’t quite mind what he was doing to me. I was supposed to, I knew that. Yet it was almost calming in a sense. Peter Nureyev and Juno Steel, two people who grew into situations that maybe weren’t meant for them originally, but they worked. Two people who had the potential to be something great. 

I would see Juno again. The only question was when. 

\-----------------------------------------------

Juno hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the car ride, but I certainly wasn’t going to be the one who woke him up. Lucky for the both of us, he had agreed to trade off driving just for a few moments. From the second he stepped foot in his apartment, we both knew the poor thing was exhausted to the bone. Naturally I would only lie and tell him that he had just rested his eyes for a brief pause in time, that was all, which would then invite him to badger me about how I was plotting his death or something or other. For the moment, it was quiet. The quiet gave me a chance to think, to observe. I glanced over at Juno: dark face illuminated in the twin moonlight to show darker circles under his eyes; a few new bruises and cuts healing over, ones you couldn’t see from just passing glances on the street. There were a lot of things that you couldn’t see from just passing glances on the street.

I suppose that it was a favorable coincidence for both of us that I had happened to be in the area when Valles Vicky called me, rather than out in the desert trying to figure out how to catch a nonstop train. “Hey, I got a favor to ask,” she said through the comm, “There’s this friend of mine, Steel. He’s pretty interested in Martian artifacts, and not any of that cheesy stuff. The real deal. You think you could meet up with him for me? He kinda just saved my life, so I owe him one.” What was I supposed to do? Say no to an opportunity to see Juno again, face to face? Refuse a business transaction from a woman who had helped me get some of my best clients? It would rather foolish of me on either account to refuse Vicky. 

However, there were some preparations that had to be quickly made. The plan I had in mind was already a two man job, which had left me in a rut for how to find a second partner until Juno Steel arrived to me on a silver platter. Identification papers were set up, so all I had to do was scan computers and file systems for an appropriate photo of Juno, details about his height and that sort of thing, and make up an identification number that wasn’t in use. After that, I managed to make it across town, hack through the surprisingly secure locks that Rita had put in, and make sure I covered my tracks. While digging through the detective’s closet for clothes he could bring, I managed to note suit sizes and call upon a tailor who was based near the Oasis Casino. Then, it was just a matter of lounging across the couch and trying to stop myself from panting slightly. That was how I found myself in an empty apartment at one in the morning, waiting for my destiny. 

Juno stepped into the room with a small grumble, carrying himself like a man who was both troubled and too tired to care that he was troubled. When he flicked the light on, I could swear that there was a glimmer of hope of something more, before it was definitively masked with anger. Goodness, the bitter pain rolled off his tongue and through my chest as he confronted me. Nureyev. That was a name I name that I hadn’t heard from another person in years. It had only been written down or said in a mirror to remind myself of who I was. Yet there it was in front of me, escaping Juno Steel’s lips in a mixture of rage, surprise, and disbelief. 

Truly, I had missed him- much more than I had thought that I would. The only person who I had ever truly missed before, but not in a “let’s run off to the farthest reaches of the galaxy in a romantic journey through the stars” sort of way. Seeing Juno in such close proximity for the first time in months reignited the same small fire kindled in my stomach from when I had walked into that office oh so long ago. In a matter of seconds, my eyes scanned the detective to take a flash inventory. No new broken bones or anything like that that required tending to. A handcuff mark showed several inches below rolled up sleeves, almost looking like an accessory, as diamonds would be for those rich and powerful. There was a man desperate for answers, about myself or Martian artifacts, who was either too stupid or too brave to say no to anything I may have offered. For crying out loud, all I told him was that we had a long night ahead of him and I needed his keys. What a bravely stupid man. Or perhaps just an overtired detective. He only asked a few questions in the car, none of which I answered in the way he wanted, before drifting off with his head against the window. 

Questions with a slightly cracking voice, such as, “Where the hell have you been, Nureyev? You disappear for months on end, and then you just expect me to buy that you haven’t been lurking around doing who knows what?” Oh Juno, always trying to figure everything out, including the mystery of myself. It was a fair point, given that I had been on Mars quite a while for my standards. Like I said, lots of dealing and stealing, when it was necessary, artifacts. Surprisingly, I also danced quite a bit with the Kanagawa family. Min hadn’t been exactly happy with the way that Juno had threatened to expose her; some of my work involved more threats, other parts bribes and general roughhousing until I made it perfectly clear, once and for all, that Juno Steel wasn’t someone they were allowed to mess with. I had to say, they put up more of a struggle than I anticipated. The Kanagawas were bloodthirsty and vicious. 

I also had to contend with the new information that I had discovered about my employer. She wanted to get her hands on the weapon that killed the Martians, a weapon with the power to destroy entire civilizations. Murder and destruction in reference to those who were getting in your way were one thing- I would be the pot calling the kettle black if I judged, though my chest didn’t swell with pride when the memories crossed my mind. But a mass genocide for a power grab? That wasn’t exactly in ,y best interest if she was going to detonate it while I was on Mars, now was it? And I certainly didn’t want a “what could have been” on Brahma to turn into a “what happened” on Mars. I protected a planet and it’s people before; I wasn’t about to let another one go. Yes, few and far between, my morals managed to make a reappearance. However, that left me in the tricky position of getting the Egg without Miasma discovering my plan and sending her goons after me. Me, and now Juno, I supposed, who had unknowingly gotten himself tangled up in this mess yet again.Miasma would kill me almost immediately upon the news of my sudden but inevitable betrayal, but I wasn’t sure what she would do to… Well, anyway, I wasn’t going to let anything happen to him. We had at least a day before we were found out, maybe a little longer. A day was all we needed to catch the train.

The train was why I was driving us out to the middle of the Martian desert at some early hour. Or late hour, depending on your perspective. At any rate, we were going to board the unstoppable train- the train that was the safest place on Mars because it was continually moving at incredibly fast speeds, too fast for any thief to hop on board. Inside, it held one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, weapons the planet had ever seen, along with various treasures hidden among the compartments. I had figured out how to stop it once we had gotten what we needed. The only problem was getting on. Within sixty seconds of receiving word that the train was no longer running, a security team would be dispatched to determine what had gone wrong. That would be all fine and wonderful after we had made our escape, but rather difficult time-wise if we had only just arrived. So I was going to do my best to beat Brock Engstrom, retired and washed-up old jewel thief, in a game of Rangian Street Poker to find out how to get on. Sure, many had tried, failed, and/or died, but I wasn’t your average customer. If nothing else went my way, I did have my lucky charm, a petulant detective, to help me out.   
There was one of the differences between Juno and myself: I trusted him. Maybe it would turn out to be a mistake, but I did. In my line of business, you needed the occasional accomplice who would watch your back to make sure you don’t get shot while your back is turned, or someone to man the assault as you pilot the getaway car. I had a feeling, a strong one, that Juno Steel wasn’t the type to betray you while you weren’t looking. Even if he didn’t trust you for a single moment. It was partly because of all the research I had done, but it also read plain across his face. I could tell, too, that he wanted to trust me. He just wouldn’t let himself. 

It’s alright, Juno. I can trust enough for the both of us. 

\-------------------------------------------

I could tell from the look in his eye that Juno may have actually, finally trusted me. Even after the exhaustion of the last two day’s struggles and madness and chaos, my heart leapt into my throat, far from it’s usual position deep in the bottom of my stomach. Normally when faced with the prospect of my own mortality, I tended to remain rather calm and collective. After all, I haven’t ended up in the gutter yet, have I? And I’ve always found it fun to watch your captors get worked up. But Juno… Juno threatened to shoot a laser through his own skull to save my life. I could have held my own; we were both aware of that. Yet he cared enough to put himself in harm’s way and protect me. Of course I would be a little off put by that gesture, the likes of which I had never seen before. Juno Steel left me off put with everything he did, in interesting ways. Obviously, the current situation we were in wasn’t exactly the best time for deeper feelings to begin revealing themselves, feelings that were more than just simple attraction or- god forbid- a crush. No, I merely had to tell myself that I only… Tolerated him.

The involvement of those you cared about in your escape plans tended to be hindrances that kept you from doing whatever it took to get out. I didn’t really know from experience, as one might gather, but there had been many a story of criminals who had possibly been more skilled than myself but landed themselves in trouble in an effort to help their partner. I’ll admit, becoming entangled with someone that you hold in high regards never seemed worth the risk. Before my new life, my fresh start, I did have Mags- and I had to kill him. But that was decades ago with a young boy who then turned into a completely different man. I wasn’t born a master criminal; I had to work up to it and face many challenges and difficult escapes to fight another day. And that was all this was. A new challenge. The way to get both myself and Juno far, far away from Miasma. It would be considerably easier if I only had myself to worry about, but I wasn’t planning on leaving my detective. After all he had done for me? After the way I felt about him? I felt… A lot of things for Private Eye Juno Steel, things that I didn’t have the time to process completely.

It was unbeknownst to me yesterday morning that today was going to end with a gun scraping against my temple and Juno sacrificing himself for me. Sure, I knew it was a possibility in the way that I knew it was also a possibility that we might never get aboard the train in the first place, but I was rather hoping that everything would work out in our favor. I would go back to my stellar travels, and Juno would return to Mars… Or come with me, if he wanted. That wasn’t what either of us had anticipated, but then again, neither of us expected to be caught at the last moment.

It did hurt, earlier in the day, that Juno couldn’t provide me with the most minuscule amount of trust, What purpose could I possibly have for betting his life in earnest, after everything that I had done for him over the past few months? I had given him the gift of my true name despite all the risks it posed as to my “secret identity” of sorts. If we didn’t figure out Engstrom’s trick, I would be giving the same privilege to the master jewel thief- and he wouldn’t have been so courteous with it. There could be a lot of power in your true name (not my aliases that I picked up like criminals doing petty community service), power that I didn’t want someone like one of the greatest crooks on the planet having, even if he was rather washed up. Which is why I was quite tickled pink that my lucky charm figured out his ruse with the cigarette-earpiece. Rather lucky, indeed. No matter what he believed, I held the utmost faith in Juno. I wouldn’t bet my name for just anyone, you know. 

Yet he still fought me for an annoyingly long time, convinced that I was going to betray him or stab him from behind while he was looking away, as if I hadn’t just proved that I would sacrifice my name over his life. He insisted upon staying up longer than myself and sliding behind me on the trash chutes as we evaded the assassin after our heads. For all of his mistrust in me, however, Juno didn’t hold an inclination to shoot me and take off on his own the moment the Ruby 7 handed him a gun. My copious notes kept me well informed of his sharpshooting skills; it was one thing to read about it on a screen, but a completely different thing to see it in action. Juno’s intense, steely gaze focused on the rifle, the curve of his arm as he aimed, the way that his voice pitched as he panicked, but also the way excitement when he landed a shot altered it as well. I really had missed him, hadn;t I? Juno Steel really was something, wasn’t he? Something didn’t get you everything, however. 

Engstrom had trapped me on three separate occasions. The first was in the Oasis Casino itself, when he figured out that I wasn’t quite Duke Rose and that Juno definitely wasn’t Dahlia Rose. Quite a game of Rangian street poker we had had, though I had suspected nothing less. Using my cunning and Juno’s… stubborn and frustrating detective-ness, we blackmailed the old man and live to fight until the next day. The second trap was aboard the drone to the Utgard express; we were intercepted by Engstrom and his assistant, Valencia, as we rocketed forward.Sure, I managed to trick him into believing that my remote control (which I must say, it pays to keep junk in your pockets) was the key to stopping the tracks- but the whole encounter rattled the feeble shreds of trust that Juno was starting to weave together. Now, I couldn’t exactly blame the retired jewel thief for that one; everything I did tended to be wrong in the detective’s eyes. Lastly, Engstrom was able to ambush me in the final room, where the weapon was so close that I could make it out among the various other tools of mass destruction. Fortunately, he underestimated both my skill and my lack of patience. After a few minutes of being pinned against the wall and making a few crude jokes, I managed to kick his knees out and had his arms up and behind his head. Some people just didn’t like having their toes stomped on. Being honest, it felt good to be in control of the situation, to inflict pain upon someone who had continually gotten in my way. It felt very, very good. Almost natural, in the moment. What I would have done if I wasn’t interrupted, the galaxy may never know.

And then Juno came stumbling in, red and out of breath and like a knight in badly dented armor (like all the best knights should have). He wasn’t pleased with my inclinations, I could easily tell, but he helped me incapacitate Engstrom anyway… The promptly demanding that I return the Ruby 7 to the proper authorities. Clearly, Valencia had said something to upset our detective and give him a reason to doubt me. Perhaps she said that I was a no good, lying thief who went to over-exaggerated lengths for only his own benefit? Well within the realm of possibility. I conceded; even the most useful, intelligent, wonderful car wasn’t worth losing Juno. Most things weren’t worth losing Juno, as I was quickly realizing. It had occurred to me that there was something intriguing about him the first time that we met, though this entire mess had never crossed my mind before. So I caved- we were going to ride off into the sunset on our “white horse” and destroy the weapon once and for all. Until Miasma came crashing in through the side of the train, I was under the impression that that was a solid plan. 

The whole sequence of events led us to our current situation. Juno, shakily holding a plasma cutter, patting at a bleeding eye, and staring at me like I had the solution to get us out of our conundrum. Myself, with guns pointed at my head to prevent me from getting us out of our conundrum and promises that I could only hope to fulfill. Sure, we were outgunned and outmanned, but I would pull us through this if it was the last thing I ever did.

Keep your faith in me, Juno. This won’t be your final resting place.

\------------------------------------------

Miasma always knew how to throw a party with electrifying games. Well, by party, I meant brutal torture sessions. Rather than actual games, my very forced task was to flip cards and visualize shapes clearly enough that Juno could extract the image from my head in the next room. Have I mentioned that he can apparently read minds now? It isn’t nearly as fun as you might imagine on either end; some powers come with great perks, while others come with intense agony, both physically and mentally, directly and indirectly caused. The surprise factor of Miasma’s game remained intact for the days that we spent in there, despite how I was able to make out some of their conversations; the only way that I could actually tell how Juno was performing was by the pain inflicted on me by our captor’s goons. A pause followed by an electrifying force shooting straight down my spine, followed by the occasional blow from a uniformed person? You couldn’t expect a man to be perfect all the time. Sometimes, I even told him to let me have it. The detective was pushing himself hard, and maybe he needed to rest for a moment or two. I could certainly handle a shock. Besides, it wasn’t quite the pain that bothered me most; it was the suspense of knowing that I could be jolted with a sharp, long buzz at any given moment. I much preferred my own tactics to leave others in suspense. 

Curious feeling, having someone poke about your head intentionally. After all, we both knew that Juno had only caught glimpses of other people’s thoughts accidentally, so it only made sense that it had to feel different when it was done with purpose. It felt like… A tension headache that could quickly turn into something more painful. Not that I was ever going to tell Juno that, of course. He had enough to worry about without the fact that prolonged pushing hurt. I knew that he was hurting badly as well, which was why I sometimes chose to take the shock just to give him a moment or two of respite. And for a short time, the feeling was just a pressure, shuffling around in search of the answers it wanted. One of the reasons why I wasn’t panicking a little was because I had utmost trust in the detective. Trust, and the fact that I was tired. Most people would think that being tortured and starved for days on end would keep you at the top of your game, but I was hitting the brink of exhaustion. I hadn’t hit it yet because I just refused to give up, plain and simple. I wouldn’t give up on Juno. I just hoped he wouldn’t give up on me. 

For the past several months, it had puzzled me as to why Juno had never bothered to look me up. He was a detective with a genius, albeit scatterbrained, hacker/receptionist, and more importantly, a computer. My history was common knowledge- why didn’t he want to discover who this mysterious “Peter Nureyev” was? I always had a hunger for knowledge, adventure, and an extra advantage against the world, so I knew the detective as much as the system did, if not a little more. They saw Juno as a flat figure on a screen, but to me, he was someone who risked his life for me and might have been in possession of whatever remnants of a heart I had left. Apparently I’ve turned into a mush. Nothing to do about it now. I’ve heard that high stake situations where you need to rely on someone can do that to a person. The point still remained, despite my own research- Juno knew so little about me and yet there he was, just a room over with a woman who had been my employer. A pretty good one, I would have told you a week ago. Even master thieves can be mistaken sometimes. So there the two of them were, her making him push so far back into my head, into a story that I looked back on with regret and anger. One that Juno might have been prepared for if he had even done the slightest bit of research on me. 

While I felt the push in my head to that particular set of Brahma memories, it was unclear to me as to how much of it Juno had seen until we got back to our small room and he had woken up. The stress of the encounter must have caused his brain to just quit for a little while. Dried blood stained his cheeks; while the sight of blood had never bothered me before, it bothered me very much when it was Juno’s. Whatever was lurking behind his eye was screwing around with the internal structure in a way that couldn’t possibly have been good. The only potential upside of of Juno’s worrying collapse was that it got us away from Miasma for a short while and gave the detective an opportunity to let his body rest. He looked awful: grimy and overtired and, well, like he had just been tortured for days on end. I was certain that I didn’t look much better, just with a few twitches left over instead of blood. As one of us had to be aware to make sure that nothing happened, I chose to remain up for as long as I possibly could, which meant that I could tell the moment that our detective began returning to the world of the living. It was utterly characteristic of Juno to try and take on more than he could handle regardless of how awful he was feeling. When his attention fell to the carvings on the wall, mine followed him as I explained some of the conclusions that I was forming. It wasn’t like I had had anything else to do while keeping watch and planning our escape. And it was rather interesting to think that Martians reproduced asexually- another part to the mystery. A little surprisingly, the detective didn’t feel the same way that I did. Unsurprisingly, his mind flashed to what humans could do with Martian power. 

Dealing with a petulant detective was more like dealing with a cranky child than anything else. Moody attitude and a refusal to calm down? Check. The need to learn everything, even if he was well aware that it would only hurt him in the end? Well, maybe that was more of a Juno Steel trait than that of a toddler. The fear that he would find something that would cause problems was part of the reason why he was panicking, along with exhaustion, starvation, and a pain that refused to leave. He then confirmed my earlier suspicions and admitted that he didn’t want to discover that I was a monster. Well, was I? There was an interesting question. An emotionally crippled man who was unable to form attachments after he had to kill the man who was betraying him his whole life and turned to a life of ruthless crime? Sure. That was practically a given.. But a monster? The term was so absolute, so dehumanizing. I wasn’t entirely sure what I would have done if that was the conclusion that Juno came to, even after everything we had been through. I had to give him the opportunity to make that choice. I had to know.

Which was why, despite how tired we both were, I told him to probe my mind like before. He deserved to know about the rebellion in Brahma, about the betrayal, about me. Yes, it was a lot. I was very much aware of that fact. My baggage was enough to make anyone condemn me as someone who didn’t deserve anything at all, let alone the potential for happiness. Juno had to be well aware of the mess that he was getting himself into by trusting Peter Nureyev, and… I had to know if Peter Nureyev was someone who could come close to be deserving of Juno Steel. If he was, I would be there for the detective to the best of my ability even after we escaped our eminent doom. Maybe I would even consider staying on this small, stifling, dismal little planet if he remained adamant against leaving. Or Juno could draw the conclusion that Nureyev was a monster who only warranted a shot in the head for the life, all of the lives, he destroyed, or that he wasn’t someone who could ever be capable of holding down even a merely friendly relationship. Maybe. 

Peter Nureyev had been a man… A kid, really, who had made a lot of bad choices in his brief existence. Stealing and thieving, plotting the downfall of an entire civilization under the guise of trying to help, murdering the man who had took him in off the streets. I suppose that many smaller mistakes had all coalesced into one large one that formed the person that I am today.Sure, some things were rather unfortunate and regrettable, but everything has been necessary to my continued survival and success. Things that were once a have-to-do have even become mildly to moderately enjoyable in a life that I’m partial to now solely because it’s my own, not that of a pawn playing in someone else’s game of chess. Of course it would be understandable if the entire situation wasn’t Juno’s cup of tea, if my past wasn’t his cup of tea, if I wasn’t his cup of tea. Maybe he doesn’t like tea to begin with. Which would be fine, and I would be fine as well. Peter Nureyev, along with everything else, can survive anything alone and sometimes even prefers it despite the loneliness. Loneliness and alone hold completely different connotations, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. I didn’t need Juno Steel.   
But I wanted him.

As he closed bloodshot eyes, my hands reached out of their own accord to rest over his, pale and slender fingers coming to intertwine with darker and thicker ones. Could Juno feel that in his current state? Could he feel the way I squeezed oh so gently? Did he understand how I masked the almost -dare I say it- desperation sitting in my stomach with a clever wit that had kept me alive all these years? There were many things that I could ponder over while the detective did his digging, but there was one issue that was more imperative that we figured out than the others: our escape. What would be the most efficient way for us to make our way out of this Martian hideout? Merely strolling out and hoping for the best would certainly get us killed. No, we were going to need as many weapons as we could off of Miasma’s agents, perhaps even uniforms, too. The dried blood on Juno’s cheek even gave me an idea as to how to lure them in here. 

But that could wait a little longer to give Juno enough time to see… Whatever it was that he wanted to see. While I sat there, my attention shifted to the decorations in the room around us. A Martian birthing chamber made an interesting choice for a prison, and it was nothing short of what I expected from my employer. Miasma had always held a certain fascination for these people and their culture. She only wanted the best of the best, which was why she had hired me on. What a pity that she had sent me right into the hands of the one person who could distract me from our task. Speaking of, Juno’s features grew more furrowed and twisted as my eyes wandered back to him, the corners of his mouth twisting down with his entire face threatening to follow. There was no doubt that he wasn’t entirely pleased with whatever he was seeing inside my head, but he was persevering to see whatever truth that he wanted to see before. I admired that. 

Close to half an hour had passed before I couldn’t wait any longer; we had to get moving before Miasma decided to drag us from our brief respite and put us through another round of Guess-That-Shape. A droplet or two of blood trickled down from Juno’s eye. I was glad that it wasn’t any more than that, and it served to be enough for my purpose. In that moment, I called in the guard outside under the pretense that the detective was dying (I feel it’s far to say that my acting gets the job done when needed) and managed to subdue her. That only left trying to rouse Juno and get him coherent enough to come with me. I failed spectacularly. It was a calculated measure- by the time he came to fully, a much larger group of assistants would have shown up and left us in a pickle. So I took the opportunity and fled. As soon as I could, I was coming back. This wasn’t the type of situation where I was going to ride off into the sunset solo and leave my partner behind. We were in this together. I took one last glance into the room to see Juno, half awake and looking at me with something I couldn’t quite place. 

Goodbye, detective. For now.

\-----------------------------------

Juno Steel was, undeniably, an idiot. There’s enough to write an entire book on it. But more on that later. 

Four days. Four days was how long it took me to make my way through the labyrinth that led back into the depths of the Martian tomb. I had only made it up to a storeroom closer to the surface, never any higher and never seeing the sun. The only reason that I paused was to regroup enough to formulate a plan to rescue Juno and finish Miasma once and for all. While I would be perfectly content to never see that awful woman ever again, it wasn’t fair to let the entire human colony on Mars go extinct just because I felt sick to my stomach every time I thought of going back down. Fortunately, the storeroom held both nutrient tablets as well as a few spare uniforms that I had noted Miasma’s assistants wearing- specifically, the ones who had been assigned to manage myself and my cruel and unusual punishments. Such fond memories. 

Five. On the fifth day, once I felt that I had recovered enough to get the job done, I traveled down to search through as many of the files on ancient Martian life and artifacts as I possibly could. The difficulties lied in trying to get to the ones of the utmost importance, which of course were under the highest lock and key. So no dice there. However, there was information on how to extract DNA samples from even the oldest materials as long as one had the proper equipment, which must have been the original reason for my hiring. Someone had to get the mask, the pill, and a few other objects to undergo testing. I also found a set of floor plans that could prove useful when it came to finally escaping with one Juno Steel in tow.

Six days had passed by the time I finally went to go retrieve my lost detective. It wasn’t that I had forgotten about him in any sense; he haunted me every time that I took a moment to rest, all bloodied eyes and and a repetitive mantra of “You left me here to rot, Nureyev! I trusted you!” Needless to say, I had a bit of a difficult time resting. I wished that I could tell him that I promised I was coming back, and I would be back soon. A bruised, battered, and starving Nureyev was of little use to anyone, so it seemed important that I tried to at least not work myself right down to the bone. The moment that I learned that they were moving Juno, though, and planning to kill him, I was down there in a flash to knock out an assistant and usurp his role: pressing a gun into Steel’s head. Shoving it a little too hard was just to give a good, solid impression before I fired at the other guard and Miasma herself. Terribly sorry, but I’m afraid my job description didn’t include wiping out the entire planet.

Juno looked up at me as I offered him my hand, face smeared with red streaks and one clear eye that appeared to be filled with hope or relief or a combination of the two. Helping him to his feel, my easy smirk transformed into a genuine smile. Goodness, it was wonderful to see him again, alive and whole. As I tend to do, I cracked a few jokes before the brilliant detective pointed out what I failed to notice immediately- the bodies were missing from where they had been shot down. Well, perfect moments couldn’t last forever. It always seemed like there was something worse waiting around the corner. In this case, the gold medal of “things around the corner” went to the last living Martian and her plan to destroy everyone else on the planet, which I may or may not have inadvertently helped with. The only thing I could do now was to try and stop her. 

As usual, I greatly underestimated Juno’s utter lack of self preservation and his skill for throwing himself into dangerous situations that could have been avoided if he could have put even a little bit of thought into what he was doing. This, after a long and tedious battle with Miasma that left me winded and with a sudden view of how I would give up my own instincts for a stupid detective, led me to why Juno Steel was a complete idiot.

Three. He decided that the only way to stop Miasma from destroying the entire population was to lock her in with a ticking time bomb that only she could read. At first glance, this may seem like a plan that I should be more than happy to get behind. However, I learned far too late that it also involved Juno remaining in the room with her to keep her from escaping. Only him. Leaving me standing outside. Apparently, Juno didn’t want me to get caught in the crossfire of a mess that started with me in the first place. If he had told me to shut and lock the door while I was still in there with him, I would have. We could have faced Miasma together until the very end; I would have been more than fine with that. What a better way to go than defending the planet with someone you cared about at your side? A rather fitting end, I should say, for a master thief with a flair for the dramatics. But no. The stupid, stupid detective succumbed to his ever-lingering tendencies to try and take all the the blame and punishment on alone and sacrificed himself for the both of us. The reassured yet haunted smile that he shot me through the minuscule pane of glass, tinged with red, wouldn’t leave my head for a long time.

Two. He chose that moment to tell me how he wanted to traverse the stars with me, something that I had put into his head the very first night we had met- while trying to put me in tight handcuffs, but details. Detective Steel, a lady with his feet planted firmly on Martian soil and his head wrapped up in the various crime rings that lurked in the darkness in Hyperion City, wanted to escape.Juno also said that I was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. Sure, I could show him so many different planets and stars and systems that it would make his pretty little head spin, but could I really do anything more for him than that? He had Rita, Vicky, others who could do him more services than I could.

One. The most ridiculous, idiotic thing that Juno Steel did was to say that he didn’t deserve me. How… That one threw me for a moment. How deep did his self loathing penetrate his consciousness that he could believe that he didn’t deserve me? I was Rex Glass, Duke Dose, Peter Nureyev to him. A man who was a part of the hidden society and a thief who stood for everything he didn’t and the exact opposite of a Juno Steel in so many ways. If anything, I didn’t deserve him. No matter what he thought about himself, Juno was a brave person who cared deeply about his friends, even if he wouldn’t admit it. He was witty and good in a tight spot and a good person who caught me by surprise. 

I hadn’t had a lot of experience with people along the romantic spectrum, per se. Flirtatious behavior as a means to an end was what I was best at: give a smile, get a few laughs and a drink, and move into someone new the very next night. Relationships made everything far more complicated in a way that I had never cared enough to stick around and try to figure out what made it worth it. It simply wasn’t in my nature or lifestyle, which has always been fine by me. My life choices were enough to keep me satiated. 

Yet in that moment, they weren’t enough. I wanted to take Juno’s hand and pull him through the heavy door, taking him as far away from this miserable planet that only spelled his downfall. There was so much for him to see. From the icy Europa to the Outer Rim that held so many curiosities and horrors to even further beyond, I owed Juno Steel all of it and more, so much more that I didn’t think I could ever repay him. He made me feel… Different. Complete. Like I didn’t have to be constantly looking for something new all the time, though I did certainly want to get off Mars. And maybe this time, for the moment, I wasn’t the thief; it was the petulant detective who had snuck into my chest and stolen my heart with a self-deprecating attitude and constant need to prove himself. I had a knack for picking winners, apparently. 

Was that trite? Incredibly so. Much more ridiculous and optimistic than I had thought myself capable of since… Since I was a child with Mags, really. To children, everything seemed like it was the most important thing. I used to hold the same sentiments before the near downfall of Brahma and the Guardian Angel System. Maybe it took one event to destroy emotions and another one to revive some of the leftover fragments still remaining. 

At any rate, despite his complete idiocy, that tomb did not become Juno Steel’s final resting place, but Miasma’s. Did his disappointment that he wasn’t dead hurt a little? Sure. But he was alive, he was safe, and he would realize, one day, what a gift that was to the both of us. At least I could hope that would happen, which I did as we went to the hospital to try and see what of his eye could be salvaged after the mess that the Martian pill had left behind. The answer was none of it, much to our mutual chagrin. Maybe we hadn’t made it out of there entirely in two whole pieces, but almost everything was okay. All fingers, toes, no more trauma than various cuts and bruises that would heal and psychological issues that didn’t show. There had been many close calls in my life that had almost resulted in my head going the way of Anne Boleyn’s, one of Earth’s many, many ancient queens, but this may have shaken me up more than any of them. It was different, watching someone who you cared about suffer. It scared me more than I wanted to admit.

Juno needed to be taken care of. For all of his bravado and jokes, I could tell that he was distraught about the loss of his eye and maybe even of his home. I wasn’t making him leave; he didn’t have to come with me, and we both knew that. It was more than alright if he decided that he wanted to stay behind. It would hurt, sure, but I would understand in a theoretical sense. I personally had never managed to form an attachment to any one place. Where was the time, and what would be the point? The universe held so much potential and so many things to see that it had always seemed pointless to resign yourself to only ever viewing a small portion of it. Each new thing was special in its own way, and Juno was special, too. He deserved to see all of the wonders that the galaxy and beyond held- but only if he wanted to. 

And he said that he did. That he truly wanted to go, even if he was hurting right now. No pain, no gain, as the prehistoric saying went. I think that we were both blatantly aware of the pain in our lives and had been for a long, long time. So why shouldn’t he get a future like that? Despite all of my worries that he wouldn’t enjoy being so far from Hyperion City, the thought of all the adventures that we could have, far from anyone who knew who we truly were, captivated and enthralled me. It could be… It would be quite an adventure. I was certain about that, more than I was certain about almost anything else. I couldn’t wait to truly share my life with someone. 

Sharing my life began with sharing my bed that very night, and it was unique, to put it into words. I had never struggled when it came to finding someone to spend the night with me. Perhaps it was because of my dashing good looks or charming personality. Yet that had always been a physical longing: for someone to be with, for someone to satisfy certain needs, for someone to stave off the occasional loneliness whenever it tried to rear its ugly head. Juno Steel? From beginning to end, it was so much more than physical. It was like nothing I had ever done before, which was fitting for a man with a certain je ne se quois that I had never seen before. I wanted to spend the rest of my nights chasing after that feeling. Me, Peter Nureyev, notorious master thief who had spent over twenty years of his life alone, wanted to spend the rest of it with a ridiculous, irritable, noble detective who had tried to arrest me upon our first meeting. 

I realized as I fell asleep that I might have just fallen in love.

\------------------------------------

It would have hurt less if he had just told me no to begin with.

I woke up to a cold room overlooking what would have been a gorgeous view of Hyperion City if I hadn’t expected there to be a warm person next to me. His clothes, his keys, and the man. Gone. A disappearing act in the middle of the night. It sounded like something that was more up my alley than his. Where he differed from me was that, I learned as I quickly scanned the room, he left all of my belongings and valuables behind but no note. No explanation at all. Sinking back into the pillows, I sighed. I wasn’t used to being the one to wake up alone.

In hindsight, I should have known that he was never going to leave Hyperion City, no matter how much he complained about it. A part of me knew that, but that part had been shoved down underneath the hope that consumed me. The hope had been born from the idea that I would be leaving Mars opposite as to how I arrived on it, and how I always came and went places alone before him. Scores of planets, powerful friends, enemies, and bosses, and more thefts than I could count, yet nothing had managed to stir up the loneliness and the light hidden deep in the back of my head like he had. Ridiculous? Yes. Pathetic Absolutely. I liked my lifestyle, got a thrill out of it, but he didn’t. How could he choose me and everything I did? He was a detective, and I was a no good thief who started to want something more despite both of their best interests. A thief who forgot all about his well developed self preservation the moment he saw a pretty face and wit. I had never felt this helpless before, and I never wanted to again. I would never let myself again because it could get me killed. It was cliched. Idiotic. Foolish.

That was the logic that I had to use in order to get myself out of bed, untangling myself from the sheets that even smelled a little like him. It got me through showering and trying to scrub off the remnants of previous history and putting on my clothes from yesterday. By the time that I was making my way to the door, the whole issue was far behind me. What did it matter? I didn’t need any attachments; they only served to hold you back and keep you from accomplishing your goals. I could have been out of that Martian prison whole days if I had chosen to leave him behind, and there wouldn’t have been nearly as much trouble along the way. The Kanagawas? The HCPD? Not my problem. Nothing that I should have had to concern myself with on the behalf of another. Peter Nureyev had always been a lone wolf, and it was naive to think of myself as anything less. I would go back to my business, and he would go back to his detective work. Things were definitely much better this way. They had to be.

So I left. Simple as that. There was no real reason for me to stay on this hellish planet any longer. I had caught wind of a planet in Orion’s Belt a while ago that was well known for its spectacular rose quartz gardens, caverns, and castles. I could go there. It was one of the many wonders of the known universe, one that I hadn’t yet seen. With infinity ahead, how could I hope to even see a fraction of what life has to offer? There would never be enough time to revisit anywhere, no matter how many bad or… Or good memories were to be found in any given location. Stepping out onto the busy street corner, I decided that Mars wouldn’t find its way onto the list of places that I might consider visiting twice. I had already wasted enough time here, working for a woman who wanted to commit genocide and playing silly games with a detective who couldn’t even trust another living being for more than five seconds. No, months spent on red terrain was far more time here than I ever needed to spend. Martian artifacts? Useless. Far greater treasures existed out there that were calling whatever alias I wanted them to. They always were.

Jupiter Stone (what can I say, I had a knack for slightly heartbreaking wordplay), after finding out directions quickly, made his way to the intergalactic train station. While I knew that his office was on the far side of the city- and he definitely went back to his office- every darker person with a stocky build caused me to do a double take. Not because I was desperate to see him or anything of the sort. But perhaps… I’m not usually at a loss for words or an explanation, but something stifled any witty answer to my own thoughts. 

“If you’re a fool, that makes two of us.” 

If you’re a fool, that makes two of us  
.  
If you’re a fool.

Fool.

I was a fool. It would be foolish of me to attempt to put this whole experience behind me as a mistake, I thought as the train left the Martian surface. For the first time in twenty years, I had felt close enough to someone to want to give them everything in my power. Still did, despite the constant heartache it brings. I wanted him sitting next to me on this train, going to see what the galaxy and the universe had to offer us. Maybe something would have gone wrong somewhere down the line, but who knew for certain? Why not keep the memory close despite the hurt it caused? It would be a greater disservice, I think, to pretend that he didn’t mean anything to me. Was the pain worth the time that we had spent together? Perhaps. I could determine that later. For now, behind closed eyes, I could imagine a smile that rarely came out, a much more frequent scowl, a dark eye, a touch, a kiss…

Goodbye, Detective Juno Steel. I do hope our paths cross again one day. I’ll be waiting.


End file.
